


Hazy Tomorrows

by Michevalier



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hotdogshipping, Hurt/Comfort, I don't want my sons to end up like that..., I'm upset too that episode 29 was a recap, M/M, Missing Scene, Shosaku, The Author Regrets Everything, so here's my own additional scene, something about this episode was screaming RED FLAG, though I'm very sad after rereading this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 17:45:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12869763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michevalier/pseuds/Michevalier
Summary: Every new morning for them was hazy regardless of whether there was fog or not. Shoichi knew that one of those mornings might be the last one for him... so he prepared certain last messages for Yusaku to carry them next to his heart.





	Hazy Tomorrows

**Author's Note:**

> The way Shoichi left his report is ominously similar to a doomed person leaving their last will... *sob* Shoichi, nooooo.... This is VERY much like a red flag for you!!

"I wonder if it's going to be hazy tomorrow?"

Yusaku flinched and turned his head to look at his friend lying next to him in the grass. Another night when the boy's mind was eaten by anxiety and insomnia, that's why he decided to drop a visit to Shoichi, even if it was already almost midnight. Having talked a little inside of the truck, the man had suddenly came up with an idea.

" _Hey! Let's go somewhere nice to watch the stars!_ "

That's how they ended up on the outskirts of Den City, on picturesque green hills. The night was pleasantly warm and, enjoying delicate scent of flowers, both hackers could afford to just flop down in the green sea, the grass swaying in the wind indeed reminded waves.

"Are you talking about weather or implying metaphorically?" Yusaku was looking up at the sky, so pitch black as if someone had spilled lots of ink, and yet thousands, no, millions stars were merrily sparkling, enlivening that darkness.

Seriously, the boy couldn't remember seeing that much stars above the city as its own artificial illumination was overpowering the starlight, and that's exactly why here, in the realm of nature, they were shining in their pure, unhindered beauty.

"You can say both," Shoichi was smiling, stars were joyously glittering on the surface of his gaze, but the outrightly fake cheerful tone he said that in made an unpleasant chill settle in Yusaku's stomach.

When the boy came to Café Nagi, Shoichi had finished writing a report, a thorough documentation of all their fights against the Knights of Hanoi.

" _Well, just in case._ "

That was all the explanation he managed to provide as most of his inner powers were obviously directed at sustaining that very same fake cheerful smile.

That very damn smile which was making Yusaku's heart clutch inside his chest and invisible slimes crawling all over his skin.

"All our tomorrows are hazy, Kusanagi-san," the boy furrowed his eyebrows and his expression darkened.

And it wasn't just light morning haze that would disappear with the first sunbeams — it was dark, suffocating, impenetrable smog that was shrouding everything in the closest vicinity, forcing to make every new step with extra caution. Rabid heartbeat drumming in ears and accompanied with shooting pain as if skull was about to explode, cold sweat, unbearable dryness in throat — these were the feelings that Yusaku experienced every new morning, even if it was sunny and the sky was crystal clear. 

They say if you stare in the dark abyss for too long, the dark abyss stares back at you as well. Yusaku could not deny it as even at this very moment he felt someone's argus-eyed gaze burning through him from somewhere unknown. Some abnormal senses deep within the boy kept whispering that it could be only one person.

" _Revolver..._ "

Yusaku clearly realized that there wasn't a turn-back now. Now that he stood in the way of whatever that man was scheming it was naive to expect that his stick-in-the-wheel deeds would be left unanswered. And that answer might be...

"Yusaku?" a familiar voice sounded as if from somewhere afar, as if the boy's ears were clogged with cotton.

" _Something big is coming,_ " his intuition was hysterically screeching. " _The Knights of Hanoi... Revolver..._ "

"Yusaku," the uneasiness was suddenly washed away by a wave of unexpected gentleness born at the moment Yusaku's heart fluttered, and all because Shoichi tenderly held his hand and entangled their fingers.

"Y-yes, Kusanagi-san?" luckily, the starlight wasn't bright enough to expose the boy's faint blush.

"You're trembling. Are you cold?"

"Not really, it's just..."

Before Yusaku had a chance to finish his sentence, Shoichi sat up and quickly took off his coat.

"Come here," he said softly as he was lying down in the grass again and, being covered by the coat, beckoned the boy to join him.

Hesitating only for a second, Yusaku nodded and snuggled up to the man, putting his head on the broad and warm chest. Shoichi sighed as he tucked the boy into the coat and wrapped his arms around him. Feeling the man's heartbeat right under his cheek, Yusaku closed his eyes, feeling as if all of his worries vanished away akin to dew under the morning sun's first gentle rays.

"Geez," Shoichi's soft chuckle somehow reminded cat's purring. "You're such a little baby."

Normally, Yusaku would complain but right now he felt so comfortable in the man's arms that he could only grumble something incoherent.

"Yusaku."

The sudden change of tone, from goofy to serious, made the boy subconsciously shudder, but as soon as he raised his head to look at his friend something was worn around his neck.

"A flash drive..?" Yusaku blinked, examining the device that was now akin to a pendant on him.

"This is, uh..." Shoichi looked to the side, disquiet was like an invisible rope tightening around his neck. "That report that I have written, it's here... In case if... if something happens to me... will you give it to Jin... my little brother?"

Thousands of needles pierced Yusaku's heart simultaneously, his eyes were glimmering but not because of the starlight.

"What are you saying, Kusanagi-san?" he put an enormous effort not to let his voice crack despite the lump of tears in his throat growing larger every moment.

Shoichi's gray, no, the flickering star lights were making them beautifully silver, eyes were glimmering with moisture just like Yusaku's, and yet he desperately tried to keep his emotions under control, even if phantom claws were mercilessly digging into his own heart.

"Our tomorrows are hazy, indeed," the man took a deep breath to calm down but the exhale came out treacherously shaky. "I feel the same as you. The Another incident was only the beginning... the beginning of the end. Who knows what those Hanois are up to next. Perhaps, the countdown of my final days had already began. If so, then I want at least to let my brother know... he is always in my heart and I'm so sorry that I was unable to protect him... not now nor back then, ten years ago."

Yusaku's own breath hitched, dull pain radiated inside his chest as he dug his fingernails in Shoichi's hoodie.

"That... sounds like your last will," the boy whispered in a lifeless voice, his emerald eyes turned glassy, devoid of any sparks of soul.

There was a red-hot coil crushing Shoichi's innards, but despite the hellish agony tearing him apart from inside he still managed to force a smile, even if a terribly bitter one.

"Well, you may call it like that, yeah."

And he regretted having the gal to say that right away.

Yusaku was trembling in his arms, trembling like a tiny stray pup left outside under heavy shower and beaten to a pulp beforehand, his face turned pallid and his lips were tightly pressed together resembling a thin crooked thread.

Such a blunt display of uncharacteristic, as it may have seemed to those not knowing the boy, vulnerability...

Shoichi couldn't take it so he grabbed Yusaku and pressed him close to his chest, praying that his body heat and heartbeat would at least somehow soothe the aching pain that was so carelessly caused to him.

"Shh, shhh," the man pressed his lips to the boy's forehead, clumsily stroking his hair. "Please, it's not like I'm going to perish tomorrow. I'll do my best not to... Yusaku, please..!"

The boy sobbed quietly as he clung onto his chest.

Damn, his nerves were sure shaken due to all their struggles against Hanoi and the very thought of Shoichi not being there for him...

 _Shoichi not holding him tightly, not leaving butterfly kisses on his cheeks_...

The very thought of that was igniting Yusaku's consciousness, forcing him to want nothing but log in _immediately_ , find the Hanoi base _instantly_ and strangle Revolver with his own hands _forthwith_.

And yet...

"I'm sorry, Kusanagi-san," the boy pulled himself together, taking a deep breath. "I'm okay."

He ought to have been.

After all, when they were getting involved in their war they should have known better that ever since then each and every of their tomorrows would become covered in haze.

 _There was no guarantee that the next morning would have even come_...

"Don't worry," Yusaku swallowed his encumbering fragility and held onto the flash drive, clutching it to his chest like a precious talisman. "If something happens... you may count on me."

"Yusaku..." Shoichi's silver gaze met up with the emerald one.

_Ah... such beautiful, fragile mirrors of a young soul, obsessed with revenge._

"Everything will be alright," the man whispered, caressing Yusaku's cheek.

" _I promise,_ " he didn't find courage to finish it aloud as heavy doubts were still there, crushing his own soul.

Not knowing himself why but the boy nodded as he nuzzled his cheek against the big warm palm.

Or maybe he _did_ know, just wasn't ready to confess about it right then, right there?

"...I promise," unknowingly, Yusaku echoed Shoichi's thoughts, causing him to shudder.

The boy never specified what did he promise, though Shoichi didn't need it, he simply held him tight in his embrace.

Yusaku clung onto him, having closed his eyes.

It was his decision to go after the Knights of Hanoi, it was his stubborn resolve that kept pushing him right into the raging flames of their invisible to others war. It would have been _deadly_ ignorance to assume that victims were unavoidable... though the boy would prefer biting the dust himself rather than letting those Hanoi scums to even lay a finger on Kusanagi-san... his Kusanagi-san, someone whose existence was irreplaceable to Yusaku's heart. Yes, that was the only reason of the boy ever hesitating before going into LINK VRAINS.

 _Losing the one whom he loved the most was the biggest fear of fearless Playmaker_.

 _And that was the cruelest dilemma_.

Their war was _the only_ way to save each other.

A sigh left Shoichi's lips, a sigh so heavy that it definitely expressed all the suffering he felt for the past ten years. The boy in his arms fell asleep soon enough, but the man kept staring at the stars far above, twinkling as if mocking him about not having the freedom they had.

 _Twinkle, twinkle_...

Shoichi wasn't counting seconds, but he was certain that lots of them had passed as the ink of the sky began fading and the stars were gradually disappearing one after another.

The man's heart sank.

That was it.

Another "hazy" morning with no visible trace of fog around the hills.

Shoichi wholeheartedly wished, he was ready to trade his exceptional hacker skills for a magic to stop time, to always remain in the quiet and blissful haven of Yusaku's embrace... but only a new threat was already hovering its inhumane weight right above their heads. New morning was there, pushing them to walk barefoot another mile on the double-edged sword of life-or-death risk.

Shoichi could only hope that his message, the one that was so close to Yusaku's heart right now, would reach his brother, Jin, when he himself will have been on his way to the underworld.

 _And another message, as a separate file, meant for Yusaku himself_...

~~~

File No. 1008. (To Fujiki Yusaku):

" _Yusaku... I'm so sorry. I never meant to cause turmoil in your heart, but since I'm no longer a part of this world... Forgive me. I just wanted you to know that I was deeply in love with you._ "

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so worried about my babies... If something happens to Shoichi, I'm 100% sure Yusaku won't take it well :'-(


End file.
